Pick a Pumpkin Recipe Winner!!

Finally, after much, difficulty, could even call it agony – and I am not exaggerating – we have our 2 nominees. The pumpkin recipes submitted this month were beyond amazing, creative, and diverse. I kept saying to myself, “This month we can’t pick just two finalists. Maybe we need to to change the rules so we can have more finalists.” I couldn’t even choose which recipes to make. I almost had a fight with Tamar over our first finalist’s recipe – Melinda’s Pumpkin Fritters. I had a gut feeling they would be delish and I wanted to make them, but Tamar chose them before I could! Then I was hoping she wouldn’t have time to make them before her trip to Italy, but alas, she did and she loved them as much as I knew I would. She loved ‘em, her kids loved ‘em, and she was barely able to put one away for her hubby. Another one I just knew was going to be a winner (our second finalist) was fbogus's Roasted Pumpkin Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Ricotta – divine beyond words. Because whole pumpkins can be hard to find and even harder to work with, I tested this with canned pumpkin, spread on the dough like sauce, topped with a nice sprinkling of kosher salt and then I followed the directions as printed. It was great even with this labor-saving adjustment though roasted pumpkin is the way to go. (Roasted sweet potato and/or butternut squash would also be wonderful substitutes.) The recipe also calls for a handful of sage leaves which I subbed for a sprinkling of dried thyme on my first round of testing. Had to do that ‘cuz Hubby went shopping for me and couldn’t find any sage leaves in the spice aisle, so he came back with bay leaves – he missed that I had said FRESH sage leaves. Honorable mention goes to Nechama Tawil for her Pumpkin Pots de Crème (I accidentally left out the maple syrup from the recipe, but found it to be perfectly sweetened without it); also to LeoraB for her Pumpkin Stew. This was a strong finalist contender – kitchen-tester Hadassah said her family licked their bowls and became immediate fans of LeoraB and her savory stew. Special kudos to Emi for her Pumpkin Crème Puff. It didn’t make the finals because we had some difficulty with the recipe, but I am beside myself wanting to experience this dish. It seems like a real delicacy. So should anyone test it with success, please leave a comment in the notes so we can all enjoy it. In order to vote for your favorite recipe, please click through to South African Pumpkin Fritters OR Roasted Pumpkin Pizza with Caramelized Onion and Ricotta and click on the thumbs up sign. The winner will be the recipe with the most thumbs up. You have until November 30th 2011 at 9 am EST to vote.